The Bookman's Promise (9 page)

Erin and I parted company at the store, where she picked up her car and headed wearily home. I sat for a while watching the empty street and thinking about restraint. The word had become almost extinct in the sexual sixties, when I was coming of age and everybody groped everybody at first sight. I had done my share of that but time and age had dimmed its appeal. In my younger days I might have made too much out of Erin’s verbal horseplay and groped my way into hot water. I knew something strong was brewing between us and tonight, that was enough.

I got to my house at dawn, only four hours before I had to open for business, and I did what I always do after a sleepless night: put on my sweats and went for a torturous run in the park. I did my three miles in well over twenty minutes, then I jogged out another two miles and walked myself cool. All along the way I thought of Denise and how personally encumbered she had felt by the promise I had given in her home. I knew she’d keep pushing me until there was no margin left in the book for any of us, and I was okay with that.

We had agreed to meet again tonight, to formulate some plan of action. Denise would expect me to have some ideas, but everything I considered was immediately swamped on the rocks of the great time barrier. Eighty years! Jesus, where would I start? I could get on an airplane and fly off half-cocked to Baltimore. I could waltz into Treadwell’s and ask a few stupid questions, and then what? As soon as they figured out how little I knew and what I really wanted, I’d be laughed out of there and jeered down the street into the harbor.

But even a fool must start somewhere. At eleven o’clock, having disposed of a few customers and rung up a few sales, I decided to defy the odds and call the home in Baltimore where Mrs. Gallant had been living. Maybe something she had left there would lead to something else. Neither of the Ralstons knew or remembered the name of the place, and when I called Baltimore Information I was told what I already knew. You don’t just ask for the number of Shady Pines: there are dozens of entries under “Assisted Living Facilities.” This would be a substantial trial-and-error job that could take days to pan out.

I went in another direction that might have been just as futile. From Information I got to Social Services, and from there I bumped my way from one extension to another until I got to the old woman’s caseworker. I had hoped and assumed she’d be in the system, and there she was.

I knew the caseworker wouldn’t blurt a client’s affairs to a voice on the phone, but I had to try. I got a woman named Roberta Brewer and I told her the straight story, beginning with the news of Mrs. Gallant’s death in Denver. No one had called her on that as yet, and she was sorry but grateful for the information. Then I told her what I wanted and why: I explained about the book and why I was searching for the others, and she understood it the first time and seemed to believe it. “Let me call around and check you out,” she said. “Then I’ll call the home where Jo was living and they can call you if they want to.”

This was the best I was going to get, so I thanked her, hung up, and hoped for some luck.

Two hours later I got a collect call from a woman named Gwen Perkins at a place called Perkins Manor in Catonsville, Maryland. Ms. Perkins was defensive, uneasy that Mrs. Gallant had simply walked out of there. Of course they had been worried sick over her, and yes, of
course
they were distressed at her death. Ms. Perkins was obviously worried about her liability: she assured me that no one was a prisoner at Perkins, people often went out into the care of relatives or friends, and I said I understood and I said this in my caring voice, full of understanding. At last I got to ask a question.

“Did Mrs. Gallant leave any diaries or letters among her possessions?”

“There were no possessions, except for the clothes she had. Usually by the time they get to us they don’t have much left.”

She made it sound like a charity she was running, as if the state wasn’t paying her nearly enough. I asked my next question on a wing and a prayer. “Is there a worker there who took care of her regularly? Somebody she might’ve told about her family?”

“We have volunteers who come in from the community. Some of them form very close friendships with the residents.” She paused awkwardly, as if she had said too much, and finally she finished her thought. “In Josephine’s case, that would be Ms. Bujak.”

“Ah. Would it be possible for me to speak to Ms. Bujak?”

She thought about that. I sensed she didn’t like it but there was no good reason to stop me.

“Wait a second, I’ll get her number for you.”

I waited through some elevator music. It seemed to take a long time and I figured she was calling the volunteer and covering her bases.

“I’m back,” she said suddenly. “Sorry for the wait.”

She read off a phone number. “Her name is Bujak.
B-u-j-a-k
.”

“You have a first name?”

“Yes, it’s Koko.”

She answered on the first ring, like she’d been sitting over the phone waiting for me to call. She said “Hi,” not “Hello,” and her voice was gentle and soft. She might have been twenty or fifty.

“Is this Koko?”

“And you would be Mr. Janeway.”

“I take it Mrs. Perkins told you what happened.”

“Yeah, she did. Not the best news I’ve had all year. Jo was a good person.”

“I didn’t know her long, but I sure liked her spunk. That was some trip she took on alone. Apparently nobody at Perkins had any idea.”

“They’re all pretty uptight this morning. I think they’re concerned about losing their standing with the state.”

“Over one incident?”

“Oh, there’s always something. All those places are understaffed. That’s why I volunteer. I go out there twice a week. It’s not their fault when something like this happens—at least it’s not all their fault. Actually, I like Mrs. Perkins. She tries, which is more than I can say for some of them.”

“But there’ve been other incidents?”

“Mr. Janeway.” Now there was a slight edge to her voice. “Are you putting together some kind of file for someone, like maybe for a claim? That’s how it’s beginning to sound, and I just want to make sure we both understand why we’re having this conversation.”

“Let’s start over. Forget the questions about the facility; I’m not out to sandbag anyone. What I want to talk to you about is Mrs. Gallant. And her grandfather.”

“Charlie,” she said, and I sat up straight in my chair at the real affection in her voice.

“You sound almost like you knew him. Like she sounded when she talked about him.”

“I do know him.”

“You talk as if he’s still alive.”

“That’s how he seems. I’ve spent a good deal of time digging through her memories of him. I’ve got lots of tape—the two of us, just talking.”

“Tape,” I said densely.

“I’m writing her story,” she said, and I felt my heart turn over.

She said, “I taped everything,” and my battered old heart flipped back again.

Then she said, “We used extensive hypnosis to get at what she knew.”

“Hypnosis,” I said in the same inane tone of voice. “You hypnotized her?”

“Does that bother you?”

“No, it just surprises me a little. Did it work?”

“I guess that would depend on how you define
work
. If you’re asking whether she could be put under, then yes, it worked wonderfully. Hypnosis is actually an old technique, goes back two hundred years. I’ve used it all my adult life: self-hypnosis, age regression, autosuggestion. I used it to quit smoking years ago. I quit cold, and I was a three-pack-a-day addict. Now I use it to record their stories. The old people.”

“You do this for what, a hobby?”

“If you want to call it that. I retired two years ago and this seems to be worth my time.”

“You don’t sound old enough to retire.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere. I’m probably old enough to be your mother.”

“I doubt that. So what did you do? In your career?”

“I was a librarian. In my last ten years I was head librarian in a smallish suburban branch. I moved over here when I retired.”

“Where’s over here?”

“I live in Ellicott City now. It’s just across the river, a few miles from Mrs. Perkins’s house.”

“And you hypnotize the old people and record their stories. That’s fascinating, you know. Can you tell me about it?”

“We could be here all day. I’ll tell you this much: a good subject can be sent back to almost any part of her life. She can relive it and describe everything that went on. People have been known to remember letters in detail, even from their childhood. There’s nothing supernatural about it, it’s all stored right there in the brain. This is all very well documented and I shouldn’t be defensive about it. Take it or leave it.”

“I’m not doubting you, just being educated. So Josephine was a good subject?”

“She was great. She got to where she could go under almost as soon as she sat in my chair.”

“You did these sessions at your place?”

“Oh, sure. It would’ve been impossible to do it there, so once or twice a week I’d go over and pick her up. She loved coming out and she came to love our sessions. Afterward I would play the tapes back for her and she’d laugh and say, ‘My Lord, I’d forgotten that.’ So from that standpoint, it worked very well. Now what I’m trying to do is get hard evidence that what she told me was real.”

“How’s she holding up?”

“Amazingly well. We’ve done the same session a number of times and I haven’t caught her in a discrepancy yet. And we’re not talking about something you could write out and memorize. These were lengthy sessions, an hour or more at a time. You’d expect her to trip up somewhere if she were trying to pull a fast one, wouldn’t you, Mr. Janeway?”

I took in a deep breath. I couldn’t believe my luck.

“Aside from her memories,” she said, “I’ve gone through many pages of records that tell who the people in her family were. How they lived.”

“Ms. Bujak—”

“Call me Koko.”

What a great name, I thought. Koko Bujak. A great and elegant name indeed.

I told her the long version of the story I had given the social worker, beginning with Josephine’s arrival in my bookstore the day before. She said nothing while I flashed back to my own infatuation with Richard Burton, the auction, and how Mrs. Gallant had discovered me. Then she said, “I knew something was going on with her. I wish she had told me about it, I’d have taken her to Colorado myself.”

“Why would she not tell you?”

“Who knows? Maybe she was afraid I’d try to stop her. We had a good working friendship but I think I still represented the state to her.”

“For what it’s worth, I think she’d have died anyway. Whether you had come or not.”

“Yes, she sensed the end coming and so did I. She had lost a lot of ground in the past six months. I was working hard to get her memories transcribed, so she could see what I had.”

“What are you going to do with it now?”

“Finish it, of course. I didn’t get into this just to patronize her.”

“What happens when you do finish it?”

“Depends on what I’ve got and how good it is. If it’s good enough I might try to find her a writer to put it into a book. Otherwise I’ll leave it with the state historical society. They’re always interested in records that tell about local people.”

“How will you decide…you know, whether to turn it over to a writer?”

“The obvious standard would be whether there’s national interest or if it’s strictly local. If what she thought was even partly true, I think it could be a significant book. Don’t you?”

“I sure do. And if I may say so, it sounds like she left it in good hands.”

There was a pause, as if she didn’t quite trust the compliment. Then she said, “I do have a sense about it. It goes way beyond what I’ve done with other life histories. I can’t think of a better use of my time right now. But there are some things I can’t do from here. I may have to go to Charleston to chase down some facts. I’ve been avoiding that, but—”

“Can I ask how much you’ve been able to verify so far?”

“Quite a bit, actually,” she said, and I felt my heart rumble again.

“How much of it really involves Burton?”

“Well, that’s the mystery, isn’t it? How much of what she thought was real really was, and how much can be nailed down at this late date.”

We were at a sensitive point and I knew it. “Your name came up last night, just before she died. She was talking about a photograph of Charlie and Burton that had been taken long ago in Charleston. She said you knew about it.” I suffered through an awkward pause, then said, “I guess I’ve got to ask for your help, Koko. I know it’s asking a lot—you’ve done so much work on her story, and all I can do is promise you that nothing you share with me will get out before you decide how you want to go.”

“In the end, though, I would have to take your word for that.”

“That’s what it would come down to.”

“This couldn’t be done on the telephone; you’ll have to come back here. I want to see your face before we get any deeper into it.”

“That’s fine. I’m happy to do that.”

“Just understand that this is still very much a work in progress. I’ll talk to you but that’s all I’m promising at this point.”

“I’ll take that chance. I might be able to come next week.”

“I’ll be here. I live on Hill Street, fifth house on the right. My name’s on the mailbox.”

Reluctantly, almost painfully, I let her go.

By then it was after six. I was late for my call to Treadwell’s, so I punched in the number and waited. The same spacey-sounding woman answered. This time she asked who was calling. When I told her, she said, “Justa minute, hon,” and I was put on hold.

I decided to play it by ear: I wouldn’t mention my deception if he didn’t and we’d see what happened. I sat listening to the hum on the line.

I heard the click of the phone on the other end. But the voice that answered wasn’t Dean Treadwell’s. It was a deep voice, and flat: the coldest voice I had ever heard.

“Yes?”

“I’m holding for Dean.”

“Dean’s not here.”

“I’ll call him back.”

“Who is this?” he snapped gruffly.

“Who are
you
?” I said with a smile in my voice. A quiet few seconds passed. I asked, “Is this Carl?” but he had hung up.

A real friendly boy. So far both Treadwells were living up to their advance billing.

That night I ate with the Ralstons and gave them a report. Denise was elated that I had found Koko so quickly and was hopeful that this might be an early break. “Now what?”

“I’ll fly back there next week, see Koko, rattle the Treadwell cage. See where that gets us.”

She put on her pleading face. “But next week seems so far away.”

“The woman who minds my store will be back then. I’ve got a flight out next Monday.”

We talked for a while longer. Denise had brought out the old woman’s book and she returned it to me now with a grand gesture. “You will note that there are no spots on the cover, I did not leave it out in the rain, or earmark any pages, or write my name inside with crayons, much as I wanted to.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” I said sheepishly. “I had to make the point.”

“Oh, you made it, Cliff. I’d liked to’ve kept it another day, but Michael was a nervous wreck just having it around the house.”

None of us had any brilliant new ideas and I left around eight. I went to bed early, knowing I had made some progress, even if I still didn’t know what I was progressing toward or how far I might have to go to get there.